


Noctis

by irond0rkness



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Character Death, Drowning, Fatal Injury, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt Tony Stark, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, Injury, Sad Ending, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, i am not kidding there is nothing but dying here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-17 22:08:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29107572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irond0rkness/pseuds/irond0rkness
Summary: Trapped under debris in a small pocket of air, Tony Stark waits for his team to rescue him.His time is running out though, so he only hopes that they will move fast enough.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 21





	Noctis

There was darkness. Not a single ray of light emanated from anywhere except the flickering blue pieces on the ground, but their light was finite and weak, not enough to illuminate the space he was in.

He was lucky he had gotten his helmet off before the reactor went offline, otherwise, the consequences would have been terrible. There was a chance that the cutoff in power would put it into lockdown, essentially shielding him from the world while still in the armor. If only the helmet happened to be part of the lockdown, he would have been cut off from his primary air supply and be left with a significantly reduced amount of oxygen.

Tony mentally noted the danger the current design of the armor could pose and put it on his list of future upgrades. It was vital that he kept his armor in working order, or else it could end badly for him.

It would have been more comfortable if he still had it on, though. The debris was rather uncomfortably pressing on his neck and he could feel the sting of a few cuts on his head. 

The small, cramped space he was in seemed to be mostly stable around him, but the pressure on his shoulders and back told him that he was most likely at least part of the supports for it. Tony mentally thanked his armor joints for locking as there was no way he could have held it up by himself. Still, he was careful not to move too much, he could still shift the entire armor if he wiggled in place too much.

Communications were down, but Tony was certain he would be found soon enough as the Avengers could pinpoint his location through the trackers installed in his body.

This meant that the only thing he could do was wait for them to find him.

Tony attempted to take a deep breath to calm his nerves but found that it was more painful than he was used to. Breathing had always been a problem after the reactor was implemented and even after the surgery, but this was something different. Still, it seemed oddly familiar to him, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

He tried to take another, shallow breath, but the only thing he accomplished was causing a coughing fit. For a moment, the silence in the pocket in the debris was broken by a wet and hacking sound and the sound of something dripping on the ground. Accompanying it was the screech of the armor shifting little by little every time his body violently jerked in unison with his hacking.

The movement made his chest ache with pain that was similar to the one he felt back in the cave, like his chest was being torn apart from the inside. Every change in position made him want to cry out in pain, but nothing apart from the coughs escaped his mouth.

When he opened his eyes once more, the flickering blue glow was no longer the shade of winter skies, the glow interrupted and tinted with an ominous red in little dots.

Tony let out a weak gasp, but it came out as something akin to a wet gurgle. Something dripped from his lips and landed on another reactor piece, turning more of the now-sparse blue into the red of upcoming doom.

He angled his head lower to take a look at his chest to see if there was any damage to the armor that could give him a clue about the metallic taste in his mouth and the broken shards on the ground. The armor's neck joints creaked and he felt a bit of debris coming loose from the motion, falling down with dull thuds.

He soon regretted his decision.

From the center of his chest and through the arc reactor protruded a huge metal spike, gleaming darkly with liquid. It was angled so it had missed his spinal cord, but had hit his lungs instead, evident from the blood he kept coughing up. 

Terror invaded Tony's mind as he realized what had happened to him. When he woke, he had been too preoccupied with useless things to even try and remember why he was in this small space in the first place. The attacker had been powerful enough to both drive his weapon through the armor and cause the cave-in.

His breathing got faster and panicked, but the only thing it accomplished was pain and another coughing fit that painted the final dying blue shards with a layer of red. Soon even the crimson-tinted omen of doom would be extinguished when the technology gave out and turned dark for the final time. Tony could feel his heart beating in his chest, deafening against the otherwise silent space, fast but hastily weakening.

He was trapped with no way out, impaled like a pig on a spit. He let out a dark chuckle at that; at least the pig wasn't alive during it like he was.

He tried to stay calm and listen in for any sounds to hear the Avengers coming and rescuing him, but the hope he held for it was fast diminishing. Instead, his ever-so-helpful brain steered away from those optimistic thoughts and supplied him with something much darker that was becoming more likely by the second. 

Soon enough, there would be nothing for anyone to save. Even if the other heroes managed to rescue him, there was no telling whether they'd be able to get him medical help fast enough. 

In a way, it was fitting, succumbing how he was supposed to go all those years ago back in Afganistan, by something in his chest. It had been nice playing the hero but it seemed that he had simply delayed the inevitable.

His vision was getting strange, the red glow in front of him shifting and blurring as he was fighting to focus his eyes. Distantly he could hear something, someone's screams, perhaps? Or was it something else entirely? He didn't know and found himself not caring as much. 

Tony was getting a bit tired. His once fast brain moved like molasses and he felt too weak to even gurgle against the blood he felt in his throat and mouth. His hands relaxed along with the rest of his body and his head lolled down, neck only supported by the joints of the armor that resisted against the weight placed upon them. At this angle, the crimson liquid dripped freely from his slackened lips.

They weren't going to reach him in time.

It was okay, everyone had to go someday. 

The pain in his chest and lungs was growing distant, in fact, his whole body felt numb. With the last energy still left in him, he closed his eyes. 

He wanted to sleep. 

There was a racket right beside him, debris being moved, people yelling, hands grasping at him, but he no longer heard or felt any of it. 

Pictures of the ones he loved shifted through his mind, dulling fast.

"Huh." he thought.

"Maybe I didn't waste my life."

**Author's Note:**

> This is most certainly an inaccurate portrayal of how this would happen. This is partly because I don't exactly know the right search words for this situation that wouldn't make me sound like a serial killer in the making, partly because I have simply never drowned in my own blood.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Timely](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29176959) by [sarcasticfirefighter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarcasticfirefighter/pseuds/sarcasticfirefighter)




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